Kara Lennox - Hometown Honey

Cindy sputtered indignantly. Being picked up reminded her far too much of the way they used to horseplay when they were teenagers. Back then, she’d reveled in his strength, in how he could lift her as though she weighed nothing. Even as she’d squealed for him to put her down, she’d loved the feel of his strong arms around her legs, his hand on her butt and her view of his back muscles.

The memories came back to her in a flash, so vivid she almost passed out. Suddenly she was seventeen and hopelessly in love.

She didn’t need this, and wiggled in earnest. “Luke, I mean it. Put me down.”

She must have accidentally knocked him off balance, because they landed in a tangle of arms and legs.

Luke didn’t make any attempt to climb off her. His face was very close, and she could actually feel his heartbeat through his chest, hard and fast.

Cindy closed her eyes, helpless to resist as his lips descended on hers.

Dear Reader,

I think everyone has certain themes they look for when they pick up a book. One of the things I truly love is when the heroine of a book is in terrible, terrible trouble, and no matter what she does, things just keep getting worse—and then the hero shows up and makes things even worse!

So in creating my new trilogy BLOND JUSTICE, I took three very different ladies on the brink of fulfilling a dream and put them in the same terrible trouble—they’ve been bankrupted, humiliated and ruined by the same Romeo con man. Only by finding each other, joining forces and becoming best friends can they bring this slimy guy to justice. But along the way, each finds romance in a very unexpected place.

In Hometown Honey, Cindy Lefler has lost everything, and now she’s about to lose her son. In such dire straits, most women would melt if a dishy guy like Sheriff Luke Rheems came to their rescue. But not Cindy. Luke is the last guy she wants involved in her problems. What Cindy won’t admit is that he poses a threat to her heart more frightening than any con man!

I can say without reservation that I had more fun writing BLOND JUSTICE than anything I’ve ever written. I hope my enjoyment shines through.

Kara Lennox

P.S. I love to hear from readers! E-mail me at karalennox@yahoo.com or contact me via regular mail at P.O. Box 4845, Dallas, Texas 75148.

Hometown Honey

Kara Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Texas native Kara Lennox has been an art director, typesetter, textbook editor and reporter. She’s worked in a boutique, a health club and an ad agency. She’s been an antiques dealer and even a blackjack dealer. But no work has made her happier than writing romance novels. When not writing, Kara indulges in an ever-changing array of weird hobbies. (Her latest passions are treasure hunting and creating mosaics.)

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

942—PLAIN JANE’S PLAN *

951—SASSY CINDERELLA *

974—FORTUNE’S TWINS

990—THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR

1052—THE FORGOTTEN COWBOY

1068—HOMETOWN HONEY †

For Pam and the crew at Norma’s Café. Your biscuits are the true inspiration for the “Miracle Biscuits.” I have worked out the details of many a story sitting at one of your red vinyl booths, sucking down coffee from a bottomless cup.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

“Only twelve thousand biscuits left to bake,” Cindy Lefler said cheerfully as she popped a baking sheet into the industrial oven at the Miracle Café. Though she loved the smell of fresh-baked biscuits, she had grown weary of the actual baking. One time, she’d tried to figure out how many biscuits she’d baked in her twenty-eight years. It had numbered well into the millions.

“I wish you’d stop counting them down,” grumbled Tonya Dewhurst, who was folding silverware into paper napkins. She was the café’s newest waitress, but Cindy had grown to depend on her very quickly. “You’re the only one who’s happy you’re leaving.”

“I’ll come back to visit.”

“You’ll be too busy being Mrs. Dex Shalimar, lady of leisure,” Tonya said dreamily. “You sure know how to pick husbands.” Then she straightened. “Oh, gosh. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Cindy patted Tonya’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I know what you mean.”

She still felt a pang over losing Jim, which was only natural, she told herself. The disagreement between her husband’s truck and a freight train had happened only a year ago. But she had picked a good one when she’d married him. And she’d gotten just plain lucky finding Dex.

“It’s almost six,” Cindy said. “Would you unlock the front door and turn on the Open sign, please?” A couple of the other waitresses, Iris and Kate, had arrived and were going through their morning routines. Iris had worked at the café for more than twenty years, Kate almost as long.

Tonya smiled. “Sure. Um, Cindy, do you have a buyer for the café yet?”

“Dex says he has some serious nibbles.”

“I just hope the new owner will let me bring Micton to work with me.”

Cindy cringed every time she heard that name. Tonya had thought it was so cute naming her baby with a combination of hers and her husband’s names—Mick and Tonya. Micton. Yikes! It was the type of backwoods logic that made Cindy want to leave Cottonwood.

Customers were actually waiting in line when Tonya opened the door—farmers and ranchers, mostly, in jeans and overalls, Stetsons and gimme hats, here to get a hearty breakfast and exchange gossip. Cindy went to work on the Daily Specials chalkboard, suspended high above the cash register.

“’Morning, Ms. Cindy.”

She very nearly fell off her stepladder. Still, she managed to call out a very pleasant, “’Morning, Luke.” The handsome sheriff’s deputy always unnerved her. He showed up at 6:10 a.m., like clockwork, five days a week, and ordered the same thing—one biscuit with honey and black coffee. But every single time she saw him sitting there at the counter, that knowing grin on his face, she felt a flutter of surprise.

Kate rushed over from clearing a table to pour Luke his coffee and take his order. The woman was in her sixties. at least, but Cindy could swear Kate blushed as she served Luke. He just had that effect on women, herself included. Even now, when she was engaged—hell, even when she’d been married to a man she’d loved fiercely—just looking at Luke made her pulse quicken and her face warm.

She refused to blame herself. It was just hormones. The man was sexier than the devil himself, with that curly chestnut hair and those eyes, green and dark as a cool, mossy pond. In high school, he’d worn his hair long and unruly, sometimes past his shoulders, as part of his go-to-hell image. He’d made girls drool back then when he was still a skinny teenager. He’d inspired Cindy to do a lot more than drool. Now, with that uniform and the wide shoulders to fill it out and the hair cut shorter in a futile attempt to tame it, he was even more mouthwatering.